Commenting on the value decline in the oil & gas market, MarketLine analyst Mohammad Hamza Iqbal said, “There is a clear correlation between the decline in the price of crude oil and the decline in the value of the oil & gas market generally, especially taking into consideration the fact that volume consumption levels globally actually increased rather than decreased in 2016. Whilst demand for oil and gas remains strong, low crude oil prices have hit profitability.’’

The company’s latest forecasts predict a market value of $1,624.7 billion over the period 2016-2021, a healthy Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.1%. Volume growth during the same period is forecast at 1.6% reaching a total consumption of 52,619.8 MMboe.

Growth is however expected to fall behind the total market in Europe with an expected CAGR of 3.4% to 2021. This is largely due to European market maturity, coupled with low population growth and a shift towards renewable energy. As a result only marginal growth in European volume consumption can be expected.

The company’s report also highlights that the US oil & gas market is the largest domestic oil & gas market in the world, with a total value of $286 billion in 2016.

This means that the U.S. market, alone, accounts for almost 24% of the global oil & gas market. The second and third largest national oil & gas markets are China and Russia, respectively. Chinese market value stood at $161.9 billion and Russia’s at $63.5 billion in 2016. The crude oil segment was the largest in 2016, accounting for 96.4% followed by natural gas at 3.6%.